How much reading can we expect our students to do?

I am about to teach a course on Improbable Histories (for Voyagers, a home school resource center and collective) to junior high and senior high school students (and possibly an on-line version of the same thing). How many novels, short stories, and essays should I be assigning? How much reading is too much? How much is too little?

I have been wrestling with that question for a couple of weeks, since I committed to doing the course. As is often the case, that question came up on the web, this time around on the education policy blog I watch. The beginning is just below the link.

http://educationpolicyblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-much-reading-can-we-expect-our.html
( What do you think is the answer? )

A separate entry on the course and the on-line version will probably follow shortly.